Re: News: SC Education Board approves textbook, despite questions.
- From: Ritsjoena <bramvandam@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 05:20:26 -0800 (PST)
On Jan 10, 1:54 pm, Ye Old One <use...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Posted on Wed, Jan. 09, 2008http://www.charlotte.com/205/story/438860.html
SC Education Board approves textbook, despite questions
By SEANNA ADCOX
Associated Press Writer
COLUMBIA, S.C. --
The South Carolina Education Board approved a biology textbook
Wednesday for public schools, despite questions from critics worried
about how the book teaches evolution.
Good
The board voted 9-7 to approve the textbook's latest edition, which
can be used in ninth- and tenth-grade biology classrooms. Science
teachers from across the state erupted in applause after the vote.
Board member Charles McKinney argued the origin of life is an
incomplete mystery and thinks the book presents evolution as fact
rather than theory.
There is still a lot to discover about evolution so in a sense he is
right about being incomplete. However I don't think it is in the way
he presents it to be.
He asked the board to "carefully weigh the impact that distorted
science opinion presented as scientific truth in adopted text will
Nothing wrong with that. Even a good warning in general.
have upon youth." He said evolution was used by Nazi Germany and other
totalitarian states as an excuse to kill millions of people.
So evolution has to be taught well and to everyone to prevent
misinterpretations and abuse. Right again, but not in the way he
thinks he is.
"I need to assure that neo-Darwinism is not allowed to project lies
that could once again allow the emergence of social Darwinism,"
McKinney said.
Right again. But, based on the reactions of teachers, I would conclude
that this book is good to use.
The former teacher said teaching evolution doesn't bother him, as long
as students are taught it's an incomplete science. He said he realizes
I think it is good to show students the limits of the theory and give
them a sense of what something being a scientific theory means. So
nothing wrong there, but not in the sense he wants.
creationism can't be taught, because the courts have ruled against it.
Smart man. But this also shows his true intentions.
The book's co-author, Ken Miller, disputed the criticisms and said the
updated book's section on evolution is unchanged from the textbook
already used in South Carolina and all 49 other states.
Good to know.
Miller challenged the board to find a single reference to evolution as
law or fact rather than theory. No one could.
Now, why doesn't that surprise me?
Miller called it absurd and insulting to blame the theory of evolution
for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. Adolf Hitler and
Joseph Stalin were driven by racism, anti-Semitism and socialist
utopianism, not scientific theory on the origin of the species, he
said.
True, although the ideas of evolution was abused in their attempt to
convince people that this was the path to go.
"It's almost shameful to me that we're spending so much time
questioning whether evolution should be taught in school in 2008,"
True, the matter is settled by now (and for now). Just some people who
still don't accept that.
said board member Trip DuBard of Florence. "I thought we were beyond
that. If you can't support teaching science to kids, something else is
going on."
Now, what would that be? ;)
Several board members called it embarrassing that so many science
specialists had to come to the meeting to defend a textbook. They also
Just shows how stubborn and politically minded creationists are.
argued that rejecting the book would send a message to teachers that
their expertise isn't wanted. The textbook was given top ratings last
year by a panel of 11 South Carolina teachers.
Their expertise is not wanted, by creationists that is. They think it
contradicts their illusions. And they are addicted to their illusions.
Good that this book gets top ratings, while it is under creationist
fire.
In South Carolina, the state pays for textbooks and the state
Education Board approves which can be used in classrooms after a panel
review.
McKinney said he based his objections on critiques by retired Clemson
University botanist Horace Skipper and Pickens County school board
member Oscar Thorsland. The board approved other biology textbooks in
December, but postponed discussion on Miller's because McKinney wanted
to review the complaints.
Creationists keep burdening the system. Maybe we should start sending
them the bill.
The objections included that volcanic eruptions have proved geologic
formations can happen in days or months, not millions of years, and
dating methods are unreliable, so the textbook should not refer to
something as billions of years old.
Typical example of narrow minded thinking. Things can happen only one
way.
Miller said dating is reliable, and just because some geologic
formations were created quickly doesn't mean everything formed that
way.
"The state of South Carolina has never disappointed me this much,"
said sophomore David Camak, of Ware Shoals, who identified himself as
a biology major and a Christian. He declined to give his college. "It
seems to me that this reviewer does not want students to think at
all."
He, we are talking about creationists here. They have a very narrow
definition of thinking.
Clemson professor Jerry Waldvogel said he and his colleagues were
disturbed the complaints came from someone identified as a Clemson
professor. He submitted a letter signed by 130 other Clemson faculty
saying they don't support Skipper's objections.
Neither do I
.
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